


Do You Ever Wonder How Gods Are Made

by pidgeonpostal



Category: RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Apologies rating is not for kisses there is but one gentle smooch, Ascended God of Fortune Clover Ebi, Hapless Mortal Qrow Branwen, He gets better, Inspired by Hades (Video Game), M/M, Rating is for brief blood ritual, Spoilers for V7C12, Technically everyone is dead before it starts and its not important how
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:01:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26850328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pidgeonpostal/pseuds/pidgeonpostal
Summary: “Do you ever wonder how gods are made, Qrow?”Qrow died and was left to wander the halls of...somewhere. The God of Fortune is here too, sometimes, but won't say why, and seems to be waiting for something.
Relationships: Qrow Branwen/Clover Ebi
Comments: 8
Kudos: 35





	Do You Ever Wonder How Gods Are Made

**Author's Note:**

> I played a LOT of Hades this weekend and all I can think about is cool lore about deities and procedurally generated rooms. No spoilers for Hades though, you're good. I _do_ strongly recommend it though, even if you're not usually fond of roguelikes. There's romance!

“Do you ever wonder how gods are made, Qrow?”

Qrow scowled. “You again.”

Clover smiled down from the top of a column in a crisp white jacket. “Me.”

“You gonna do anything this time?”

“Perhaps.” And then Clover winked. “If you’re feeling—”

Qrow groaned. “Lucky, yeah, I know.” He never felt lucky. He had lived an unlucky life, he had died an unlucky death and now, for his misfortunes, he was cursed to wander the halls, searching for a way out. He tried to simply sit and wait once, to accept he would never reach it, only for Clover to appear and introduce himself. The irony. Visited, finally, in death, by the god of good fortune.

“All fortune,” Clover had clarified that first time, when Qrow said it aloud. “Good and bad are both my domain. So really, it could go either way.”

“Don’t see why it matters,” Qrow had grumbled. “Most of mine’s been bad.”

“I am the god of _all_ fortune,” Clover had said firmly, and Qrow had let it lie. No use arguing.

“You didn’t answer my question,” said the Clover of here and now, pulling Qrow from the memory.

“Your godhood isn’t really that high on my list of priorities, Cloves.”

“Why not?”

Qrow glared up and gestured around himself, at the cold white marble, the sconces in the walls with their blue flame, exactly where they were ten rooms ago. There was a brazier in the center of the room, also giving off blue flame, light but no warmth. He had always been told death was a fiery place, where you burned for what you did in life. He now knew that to be wishful thinking. A burning death would have been quicker, it would have _hurt_. This was cold, unfeeling, indifferent death, and somehow that was worse.

He wore in death what he had worn in life, dress pants and dress shoes and an untucked untidy shirt and—nope, that was it. He kept thinking there might have been something else, but he couldn’t remember anymore. He couldn’t even remember how he had died. He just knew, somehow.

How long had he been here? “Hey, Clover. How long have I been here?”

Clover shrugged. “Time isn’t the same here. You stopped a while ago, that took some time.”

“Stopped?”

“When you sat down? Time moved more quickly, then. You probably felt like it was minutes, but out here it was a lot longer. Around you, time passed. That’s how I found you, in the halls. If one looks for long enough, they’re bound to find something.”

“Why were you looking for me?”

“I—” Clover stopped himself. “I can’t tell you.”

“What?”

“You have to find out on your own.”

“Why?”

“Can’t say.”

Qrow wanted to punch the damn column. “What are you even doing here, then.”

“Asking questions.”

Qrow turned and walked into the next room. Ten rooms later, Clover was waiting for him, like he _expected_ something of Qrow, but Qrow didn’t know what it was, didn’t know how to give it, wasn’t even sure he _wanted_ to give it, if he could.

“It all looks the same in here, doesn’t it?” Clover asked him.

“Evidently,” Qrow deadpanned. Like he hadn’t noticed ten rooms ago, a hundred rooms ago, a thousand.

“But you keep going. Do you expect them to change?”

“No.”

“Then why?”

“What else am I supposed to do?”

Clover shrugged, and was silent. _Expectant,_ Qrow thought, and in that moment, he hated Clover. But the very thought of hating Clover made him sick, for some reason. Clover was the only other soul in here, as far as Qrow could tell. It was hard to hate the only other person in the world, and with Clover, it just felt wrong. He had these weird rules about what he could say and couldn’t say, but was otherwise amiable, bordering on supportive. Though he’d never admit it, the sound of Clover’s voice was what had gotten him moving, that time he “stopped,” as Clover called it.

But Clover was right. The rooms didn’t change. He didn’t really have a goal anymore, he knew they wouldn’t magically start changing. There wasn’t a way out of here, wherever “here” was and wherever “out” could be. He just kept moving because he didn’t know what else to do in here.

Besides, sometimes the rooms had Clover in them.

But sometimes when he first saw a room, something in his memory tried to surface. But it was all so deep, so far beyond his waking mind, and he didn’t seem to need sleep in here, nor food or water, so even a dream couldn’t shake the memories loose. And then he’d try to chase the memory, and he’d be _so close,_ and then Clover would say hello, or ask a question, and the memory would be gone.

He wondered, sometimes, if _Clover_ was keeping him here, and that was the worst thought of all. If a god wanted to keep him here, this is where he would be. Forever. With no one but Clover, until Clover left him again.

He tried to imagine forever, stretching in front of him. It came with a horrible sense of vertigo, a sudden shock of loneliness that threatened to overwhelm him.

“Don’t do that.” Clover hopped down from on high, impacting the stone with the heavy thud of his boots. His jacket shone brighter even than the white marble. It was almost hard to look at him.

“Do _what?_ ”

“Despair.”

“I’ll do what I feel like, Clover.”

Clover shook his head. “If you despair, you can’t answer my question.”

That was it. Qrow couldn’t handle this anymore. “Your _question?_ Is that all that matters to you, how gods are made? Clover, _I’m dead._ I’m mortal and I’m dead. I don’t care how gods are made, whether you fuck like mortals or hatch from the primordial ooze. I don’t care about _anything_ , except maybe what’s past that door, because it’ll get me further from _you._ ”

Clover recoiled as if Qrow had hit him, and for a moment Qrow felt as if he _had_. His body shook with adrenaline and then collapsed, his knees colliding with the floor.

Some memory flickered at the edge of his thoughts. Too far away, Qrow thought, for it had happened before. And try as he might, he couldn’t reach it. He never would.

“Qrow? Qrow!”

So he stopped. He watched tears hit his legs and gripped his pants in his fists and didn’t move. His breathing shuddered, then slowed, then stilled. Time passed.

“Qrow, please get up. I can’t—”

His body felt less and less _his,_ more an extension of the floor, of the cold white marble. He lost feeling in his feet first. Next were his legs, then that cold, numb sensation crept up his torso.

“Please,” someone whispered, after a time. It sounded like Clover. “Please don’t despair. You have more than you realize. This is not the mortal world, it does not _act_ mortal. Why should you?”

Then again, quieter: “In exchange for your companionship in these halls, I may grant you a single favor, a token. I grant it now. The rest is up to you.”

Qrow blinked. There was something in his right hand, something metal and cold. He felt the four leaves of a clover dig into his palm, but he did not open it to look. Something told him to wait.

Qrow stood up. A door loomed ahead of him.

“Doors go somewhere,” Qrow muttered. “Doors always go somewhere.” They always used to go to the _same_ place, every time. Every time he opened the same door here, he expected the same room, and he was always right.

He tried to feel...fortunate. He couldn’t.

He remembered, in a flash, a fragment of his life. He was unlucky, he always had been. Luck had never come to him, but misfortune had always been by his side.

He could not be fortunate. But _his_ fortune was not in question.

The pin shifted in his hand, the points melted together to one, longer point, that extended just beyond his fist.

“Hard to make something that big perfectly,” Qrow said to the room as he walked to the door. “And uh, hard things are also brittle. Like glass.” It felt stupid. But there was hope in him where there hadn’t been before. He kept speaking, and _willed_ it to be true with all his might. “Would be a shame if it had any mistakes in it. Might bring the whole thing down. Rough day for whoever made it. For them, that would be pretty unlucky.”

Qrow shoved the sharpened pin into the door, and the door shattered.

No room awaited him, only a darkness beyond reckoning, and yet he walked into it. “Clover,” he called.

A bright light appeared ahead of him, that fashioned itself into a man. “You made it,” Clover whispered. “Thank the gods.”

“You asked if I wondered how gods were made.”

Clover smiled. “I did, didn’t I.”

“I’d never thought about it. How are they made, Clover?”

Clover looked at his boots, and drew a deep breath. “In essence, the power of the gods is finite, and gods are made when that power is separated from the whole. At first, there was one, but they were alone, and so they offered to others. And now, where there was one, there are many, and we are no longer alone.”

“So how come I only see you?”

Clover’s smile was fragile, and Qrow could see tears welling up in his eyes. “I was alone, and asked for two things. Power, and the chance to find you.”

Qrow had walked up until they were face to face, until he could reach out and touch, if he wanted. “I think I was alone, too.”

Clover’s tears finally fell. “You were, for a time. And then you weren’t.”

“And then you left me.” Qrow felt a sudden clarity.

“I always came back,” Clover said quickly. “I could always find you in the halls. But you had to leave them on your own.”

“No,” Qrow shook his head. “No, this was before. I remember something. I was alive, _you_ were alive. We were—together. We were in the snow, we fought, and—”

“You remember,” Clover whispered, like a prayer.

“You died,” Qrow said softly. “You died and came here, didn’t you.”

Clover said nothing, but nodded.

“How long have you been waiting?”

“As long as I had to, Qrow.”

Qrow opened his hand. A silver crow skull sat in his palm. “Clover, what is this?”

“It was a favor,” Clover explained. “But now that you’re here, it’s changed. It’s an offer. Fortune can be of two kinds. It was why I took the offer that I was given. If you want, we could share it.”

Qrow turned it over in his palms. “How does this work?”

“Unfortunately, it going to hurt me a lot. But it’s worth it, for you. And I’ll be fine this time, I promise.”

The pin shifted again, elongating until Qrow held a dagger in his hand. “That’s…”

“Morbid?” Clover shrugged, his mouth pulled into a wry smile. “It is godhood. They have a flair for the dramatic. The act of giving must be commensurate with what is given. And what greater misfortune is there than to give a gift of good fortune, only to have it rend my own power in two?”

Qrow couldn’t do it. He saw the blade from the mortal world, _his_ blade, pierced through Clover’s chest by another. He had watched the light leave Clover’s eyes. He couldn’t do it again. “Clover, I can’t—” Qrow’s hands shook, and the dagger slipped from his fingers.

Clover caught it by the blade. “Ah!” he winced. “That—it counts, they accept it, Qrow, take—” and he grabbed Qrow’s hand and placed it on the dagger’s grip above his own.

Clover’s blood was gold and dripped _upwards_ from his cut hand, drifting through the air like oil through water. It wrapped around Qrow’s hand and burst with light until Qrow had to turn away.

“May one be two,” Clover said softly, as if reciting from memory. “I give to you what you knew better than anyone, that which burdened you so in life. Now, let it be your strength. Let it become your domain, that we may walk it together and lead others through its trials. Rise, god of misfortune, that we may stand side by side until the end of time.”

Clover’s blood on the dagger was green as he let go. Qrow knew, if he sliced his own palm, it would run red, not the darkened red of mortals but bright and sharp and full of power. The dagger transformed again into the silver skull, now hanging on a delicate silver chain, and Qrow placed it around his neck.

He looked at the god of good fortune, and smiled. “It’s good to see you again, Clover.”

Clover leaned in and kissed him, gently. It felt like coming home. “You as well, Qrow. Oh, one more thing.” Clover tapped his left shoulder, then his right, and from those points a tattered red cape burst behind him and Qrow remembered that yes, that was what he was missing before. One of the things. “Perfect. You never went anywhere without it.”

And for the first time in a long time, Qrow felt whole.

**Author's Note:**

> I hate that last line and also didn't know what else to write there, but damn it I had this whole IDEA and wanted to POST IT and I'll be damned if I'm stopped by one line I dislike.
> 
> Live your dreams post what you want


End file.
